


Flipped

by GhostofBambi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends With Benefits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-08-26 12:17:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16681480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostofBambi/pseuds/GhostofBambi
Summary: Oh, to fall in love, one inappropriate tryst at a time.





	Flipped

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gxldentrio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gxldentrio/gifts).



> It's time for yet another fic that started as a oneshot but grew too long! Another three-parter, lo and behold! This time around, the trope is "friends with benefits" because that's always fun and sexy. I retain all rights to Monopoly racing because my brother and I invented that game and take it _very_ seriously.
> 
> Honestly, I might end up changing the rating of this to explicit, it all depends on how things go.
> 
> This fic is dedicated to Ria, who is amazing and has already read most of the first chapter and been so wonderfully supportive of it. Thank you so much for your friendship, babe! You are a treasure trove of goodness.

Lily's first introduction to James Potter is a near naked eyeful and a hastily murmured apology.

It's her first time visiting Remus Lupin's house, though they've been working together for almost a year and have considered themselves friends for almost as long. Another of their colleagues, Beatrice, is throwing a party at her home, and Lily's decision to opt out of drinking today means that she's responsible for bringing Remus there and back, as ordained by Bea, who is definitely trying to shag him.

When attending any event, Lily believes in being politely early, rather than fashionably late, and so she stops by the house with time to spare and is promptly invited inside for tea, biscuits, and a prime spot on the most comfortable of armchairs.

Lily loves tea and biscuits, and she's very fond of Remus, so it all seems perfectly pleasant, at first.

Then his housemate lurches into the room.

"Telly," says the new arrival, who is tall, dark and alarmingly... naked, but for a pair of boxer shorts. One hand clutches a knitted blanket around his shoulders, while the other holds a squashed pizza box, though the blanket slips for a moment when he stops by the window to yank the curtains closed and shroud them all in an artificial darkness.

"This is… this is James Potter," says Remus, who is clearly ashamed of his housemate's appearance. "James, this is Lily Evans. I work with her."

"Hi," says James, and waves at Lily without looking at her. "That's Remus Lupin. You work with him."

 _"Really,_ mate?" says Remus, as James falls backwards into the sofa cushions with a guttural grunt. "When I've got company?"

"My show is on," his friend responds, and flicks on the television.

His show turns out to be a raucous children's cartoon.

"I'm so sorry about this," says Remus in a low voice, while Nearly Naked James shoves a chunk of pepperoni and mushroom thin crust into his wide open trap. "He doesn't normally act this way—"

"It's fine," Lily whispers.

"It's just that he got dumped a few days ago, and he's been behaving like such a child—"

"I'm right here," says James thickly, whilst simultaneously turning up the volume on the television. He wears glasses that sit a little crooked on his face, while his hair is an inky black birds' nest atop his head.

"—he didn't even know her that long so I'm pretty sure he's being overdramatic, but he's been like this for days," Remus continues. "It's been driving me _mad,_ honestly—"

"Still right here, Remus."

"Then go somewhere else."

"You go somewhere else."

"I _am_ going somewhere else, and in a matter of minutes," Remus reminds him. "All I asked was that you stay in your room until we lea—oh." He shifts sideways in his seat, turning to extract his phone from the back pocket of his corduroys. It vibrates in his hand. "Hang on a sec, it's my mother, so I have to take it—I'll just be a minute, I promise."

He pushes to his feet and swiftly leaves the room with his phone pressed to his ear, the old-fashioned, glass-panelled living room door swinging gently shut behind him. Lily can dimly hear his voice fading further and further away.

On the television, a bunch of plucky superheroes burst through a solid wall with a huge bang.

James snorts derisively at the screen through a mouthful of pizza.

Poor Remus, she thinks, studying the new guy's profile in the muted light. Nobody should have to deal with this kind of rudeness.

It's really rather awkward, sitting in here while he watches telly in his pants, clearly so comfortable in his own home that being mostly naked in the presence of a total stranger does not discomfit him.

Then again, Lily is the type of person who points out awkward silences, rather than allow the silence to hold all the cards.

She sits up properly, gives her long red hair one quick, impressive toss and pulls her shoulders back, setting her mug of tea on the wide arm of her chair.

"So," she says brightly, feeling remarkably straight-backed and prim, poised on the edge of the armchair like she's preparing to interview for the position of nanny in a stately home, "you got dumped, huh?"

His head jerks in her direction at speed and the look he gives her is at once appalled and astonished, his eyes widening considerably, mouth falling open, while the blanket is pulled tighter around his shoulders—an obvious defensive manoeuvre to shield him from the blistering truth she's sent his way.

 _"Excuse_ me?" he whispers, practically hissing the phrase in his haste to act offended.

She pays no mind to it. "What?"

"That's really insensitive!"

"Is it?" She lifts her eyebrows. "Because you're sitting on your couch with your curtains drawn in the middle of a summer afternoon, watching _Teen Titans Go!_ with a blanket around your shoulders like you've just been rescued from a cave," she points out, lifting a hand to indicate his sorry state. "Maybe you _need_ some insensitivity."

James gapes at her.

She shrugs.

"Where did Remus even _find_ you?" he asks, his eyes returning to the telly. "And how can I send you back?"

"Everyone gets dumped, you know."

"Easy for you to say."

"What d'you mean by that?"

With an exasperated sigh, James pauses the television and turns his head to look at her again, this time in cold, studied appraisal. His expression is completely grave as his eyes move over her face, her chest, her knees, and her new heeled boots, and the blatant seriousness with which he regards her makes Lily feel strangely compelled to laugh.

"Girls like you don't get dumped," he finally murmurs.

Lily’s lips twitch. "Pardon?"

"I said that girls who look like you don’t _get_ dumped," he loudly clarifies. "You get mad professions of love at two in the morning, and blokes hanging around outside your house, and marriage proposals you don’t want. You don't get dumped."

"That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard."

"Yeah, well, pretend to be modest all you want, but down here on earth, the rest of us have to deal with being tossed out on the scrapheap, so excuse _me_ for trying my best to heal."

"By watching cartoons in your pants?"

He tilts his head up. "Robin and I are attuned."

"Robin is a hot mess, and I have _so_ been dumped."

He harrumphs. Loudly.

"I have!" she insists, valiantly fighting a smile. "Also, I have _never_ had a mad declaration of love at two in the morning."

"What about a bloke hanging around outside your house?" he retorts. "And the marriage proposal?"

Lily opens her mouth and clamps it shut again, and James’s questioning gaze begins to morph into something surer and more smug.

"Okay, those I _have_ had," she admits, and James lets out a triumphant cannon blast of a laugh, "but come on, are you really trying to tell me that you’ve _never_ had a girl lose her head over you?"

"Never the ones I want!"

"Well, that’s just life, isn’t it? We can’t control who falls in love with us any more than we can control who we fall—"

"I wasn’t in love with Michelle," he quickly interrupts, "but I liked her—I _really_ liked her, and she dumped me and it’s shit and it’s a bit bloody difficult to put a positive spin on being dumped, alright? Hence the cartoons and the blanket. This isn’t something I do on the regular."

"I can put a positive spin on it."

"Gee, what a surprise."

"No, really, think about it this way—most relationships are destined to fail, right?"

"This is off to an encouraging start."

"It _is_ encouraging, actually, because the great thing about relationships is that they only have to work out one time." She frowns, her mouth pulling to the side. "Or twice, if the person you love dies, or multiple times, if you’re polyamorous—"

"I managed to work out what you meant without the additional explanations, thanks."

"I know, but I like to be thorough. Point is," she continues, one finger pointing in his direction, "you may have liked this Michelle, but really she was just an obstacle standing in the way of your relationship with the eventual love of your life, who you might have been in danger of missing out on if you _hadn’t_ broken up."

"Oh, so the woman of my dreams is right around the corner, is she?" He makes a scoffing sound and huddles further into his blanket. "That’s very bloody convenient."

"She might be, you don’t know," says Lily fairly. "Though you’re not likely to meet her while you’re slouched in your living room watching cartoons in your boxers. Not that I personally have anything against cartoons, but that doesn’t make it any less true."

He's frowning at her—not resentfully, not an unwelcoming, hostile thing, but one of contemplation, as if he's genuinely considering the weight of her advice.  

Several empty seconds pass.

Looking past the blanket, and the dark circles beneath his eyes, and the grotty pizza box that lies open to his right, he's really quite attractive. Too attractive, in fact, to be holed away in a darkened room like a lowly hermit, mourning the loss of some girl who obviously couldn't appreciate what Lily can see is a clear and present quickness of the mind, and really fantastic hair.

"Is this just something you do?" he says eventually. "Turn up unannounced and randomly try to fix the lives of complete strangers without being asked?"

"I don’t make a habit of it, but yeah, sometimes I can be a bit of a know-it-all, and that can sometimes be insufferable," she replies, with a casual shrug. "What can I say? It’s my fatal flaw."

"I’m glad you’re aware of it."

"I reckon that awareness is the one thing that stops my mates from strangling me to death most days," she says, which draws half a smile from him and a self-deprecating laugh from her. "What’s _your_ fatal flaw, d’you think?"

He makes a soft, curious noise in the back of his throat and appears to think deeply about this question, staring at the opposite wall with a faraway look in his eyes.

"Sometimes…" he wistfully begins, stroking his chin with two fingers. "Sometimes I think I’m far too handsome."

Lily laughs in earnest, and James grins at her, and that is the state in which Remus finds them as he reenters the living room, shoving his phone into the pocket of his jeans.

"Sorry about that, Mum can talk for hours if she’s left unchecked," he says, his eyes falling on James at once. "Everything okay in here?"

"Brilliant, thanks." James jumps to his feet, keeping the blanket wrapped around his bare torso like a superhero shielding himself from the cold with his own cape. "I’m going to hop in the shower."

Remus lifts an eyebrow. "You are?"

"I‘m scared of what she’ll say if I don’t," says James, and spins around to face Lily. "Does the lady approve?"

Lily bites back another laugh and tries her best to look supremely regal. "One does, one does."

"Excellent." With great solemnity, he sinks into a respectful bow. "Fare thee well, you beautiful, terrifying woman."

Then he leaves the room with his head held high and proud, which is a feat, considering his long, bare legs, the blanket cocoon, and his general state of disarray.

Remus stares after him for a moment, then turns to Lily with a frown creasing his forehead.

"What did you do to him?" he asks.

"Worked my magic," she says grandly, and reaches for her tea. "You are so entirely welcome."

*******

The next time Lily encounters James Potter, two weeks to the day they first met, he’s become a totally different person.

Or, not _totally,_ because she’d sensed something in him that she’d warmed to quite easily—despite the cartoons and the very dramatic moping—and that's still present, sure as she’s alive and breathing and ginger, but he seems to have shed his inertia like a snake might shed its skin.

He’s flipping pancakes.

He’s flipping pancakes _dramatically._

While listening to the Spice Girls.

"What stage of the breakup is he at now?" she whispers to Remus in the hall, a vantage point from which James is clearly visible through the open kitchen door, brandishing a frying pan like Zorro's rapier.

 _"If you put two and two together you will see WHAT OUR FRIENDSHIP IS FOR,"_ he bellows, to an anguished cry from someone else in the room who Lily cannot see.

"Oh, he's gotten over the breakup," says Remus, who has just let her into the house. "We're well past the mourning period. This is how he operates when he's at full strength."

"He listens to the Spice Girls at full strength?"

"Among a number of equally peppy nineties pop legends."

"Hmm." Half-hidden by the banister, she cocks her head to the side and watches James manoeuvre around the front of the stove. "How does he feel about eighties pop?"

"He's very strongly pro. Belts out George Michael in the shower on a daily basis."

"Ah."

Remus studies her face with a glint that might be curiosity in his eyes, but it's the barest thing, far too little for Lily to question. "Why do you ask?"

She shrugs her indifference, not blinking an eyelid. "Think he could spare one of those pancakes?"

"I'm sure he would, if you're hungry."

"I could eat."

Remus leads her into the kitchen, where Lily finds the source of the pained cry: a man is sitting at the kitchen table, tipping his chair far back on its hind legs. He is thin and pale, beautiful in a sleek, disinterested sort of way, and dressed all in black—skinny jeans and a tight black shirt, sleeves pushed up to the elbows to display his tattoos, slender wrists encircled by leather straps. His entire demeanour suggests a touch of blue-blooded arrogance, even though his jeans are ripped and his worn leather boots are caked in dried mud.

He looks like a trendy vampire who has lived for centuries and is utterly suffused in boredom, and Lily pegs him at once as a tragedy-courting hipster, handsomer than the pancake-tossing wunderkind by the stove, whilst simultaneously far less attractive.

He claims a fraction of a moment of her attention.

If that.

"Lily is here," says Remus, though James and the undead supermodel have already noticed her presence, and the former has lowered the volume on his portable speakers. "We’re going antiquing."

"You’re going _what?"_ asks James, looking at Lily.

"Antiquing," Lily repeats, looking at James. "You’re dressed."

"Hot oil tends to spatter." He moves his frying pan off the heat. "I see you're still as observant as ever."

"I wouldn't say I was observant for noticing _that._ It's not like you’ve had your hair trimmed slightly—there's quite a sizeable difference between naked and not-naked."

"I wasn't _naked,_ you're using the absolute where it isn't required."

"What are you, a master of linguistics?"

"I'm just saying." James folds his arms across his chest. "If I went outside in my boxers and a blanket, mums would drag their kids across the road to avoid me. If I went outside _fully_ naked, I'd be arrested for indecent exposure."

"That," Lily flatly returns, "still doesn't damage my original point."

"Which was?"

"You've had your hair trimmed."

The track changes to "2 Become 1" and James blinks at her in blatant surprise, but only for a moment, then his face is overtaken by a wide, delighted, boyishly charming grin.

Charm. That's it. That's what Lily can already tell is missing from his beautiful, marble-skinned mate's repertoire, even on the back of a two-second glance.

Not an _easy_ charm, anyway. Not the kind that threads gleefully through the strands of a person's DNA—the kind that Lily could feel emanating from James on the day they met, battling valianty through a smokescreen of gloom, loosely knitted blankets and Cartoon Network repeats.

"I _did_ have it trimmed, but only very slightly," James owns, reaching his frying pan once more. "Fancy a pancake before you go antiquing? And on that subject, are you actually sixty-five?"

Lily pulls a face. "Do I _look_ sixty-five?"

"No, but you're very wise and you like antiquing, so you could definitely be keeping a portrait of yourself in the attic."

"I’m sorry," James’s friend interrupts from his spot at the kitchen table, sounding peeved, and Lily notes as he does that he bears a far more blatant likeness to Dorian Gray than she ever could. "Should Remus and I leave you two alone?"

Remus, meanwhile, has retreated to the same table, and looks very much amused by the exchanges taking place before him.

"This is Sirius Black," says James, jerking his head in his mate's direction. "The constellation, not the adjective."

"I can introduce myself," says Sirius coldly.

"Didn't see you jumping to do it."

"Didn't have a chance—you were too busy flirting with the poor girl."

"Sirius is our other housemate," says Remus loudly, before James can fire back a retort. "Sirius, this is Lily. I work with her. Be nice."

"I'll be nice if she is," says Sirius, tossing Lily a dark look before he picks up his book.

Lily takes that to mean that he _won't_ kill her and drink her blood, provided she doesn't start to taunt him for his lack of a reflection and aversion to garlic.

"Never mind Sirius," says James cheerfully. "You've breezed in here and nicked the spotlight, and he doesn’t like it when he’s not the centre of everyone’s attention."

"Fuck off," says Sirius.

"Thanks, mate," James replies. "Love you, too."

"What a touching scene," Lily wryly replies. "I’ll have that pancake now, if it's still on offer."

"Coming right up," says James.

She joins Remus at the table, and James returns to his unnecessarily complicated pancake theatre. Lily observes his performance during her conversation with Remus, though she expends significant effort pretending that she couldn't be less interested in what James is doing.

If Remus has noticed—which he obviously has because he's remarkably observant—he offers no sign of it, just carries on chatting about the antiques fair they're shortly to attend.

Lily is very set in her quest to locate a really decent china tea set for her mother.

China tea sets are, of course, more diverting than disarmingly charming men.

"I wish he'd miss," Sirius remarks presently, his slender fingers curled around the spine of a battered paperback copy of _And Quiet Flows the Don_ as he watches his friend work. "He never fucking misses."

Over by the stove, James tosses a pancake high into the air, spins in a rapid circle and catches it behind his back.

Also at that moment, Lily feels an alarmingly vigorous tingle in a spot which usually reserves itself for Colin Firth's dripping-wet emergence from the lake at Pemberley.

Hah. _Hah._

That's arousal, that is.

Hilarious.

Lily is aroused in her mate's sunlit kitchen, which is really very rude and decidedly un-British.

She's aroused, of all things, by this weird, good-looking man and his shameless butchering of the Spice Girls' greatest hits, when all he's done is toss a bloody pancake.

Pancake tossing is not an impressive feat, just a party trick, not at all indicative of any particular sexual prowess, not a skill that could save a life or earn a living or _Christ_ why didn't she fully appreciate how _fit_ he was when he was mostly naked and she had him alone in his living room?

Probably because he'd been mooching around like an injured snot and pining over his ex girlfriend. But _still._

"Fan of the Spice Girls, are you?" she remarks, diverting her own notice away from the disconcertingly powerful stirring between her thighs, even though it's calling out for his prompt attention at a frequency only she can hear.

"Who _isn't_ a fan of the Spice Girls?" says James.

"Me," puts in Sirius at once, "and any other self-respecting man."

"The truly self-respecting man is secure enough in his masculinity to love the Spice Girls without feeling the need to be all bloody secretive about it," says James, sliding the pancake onto a plate. "What do you think, Lily?"

"I think the Spice Girls mark an important cornerstone of feminist culture," Lily replies, "and that 'Spice Up Your Life' is an absolute banger that everyone should love, irrespective of gender."

"I can't even begin to explain how utterly wrong you are," says Sirius in disgust.

"She's not wrong. Stop scaring women away, you arsehole," James admonishes, as he approaches the table. He sets a plate down in front of Lily and gestures to the centre of the table, where sits a block of butter, a jar of syrup, a sugar bowl and an assortment of jams. "Help yourself to whatever you like."

"Sure," she says, keeping her expression neutral as she gazes up at him. "Thank you."

He's so _tall._

So tall and so fit and so… unmoving?

Seriously, he should be retreating to the stove already, but he's still standing over her, wearing an expression that is decidedly not neutral, but rather suggests that he's discovered something greatly intriguing in the depths of her eyes.

"What?" she says, and licks her bottom lip reflexively, thinking of dried toothpaste or the remnants of this morning's porridge. "What are you staring at?"

It takes James a couple of seconds to answer, apparently too drawn in by whatever he’s noticed to think up a quick explanation.

"Sorry," he says, one corner of his mouth lifting in an endearing half smile, "it’s just—I never notice eye colour."

"What?"

"Eye colour. Never notice it, not unless I make a point to. I reckon most people don’t, to be honest—couldn’t tell you the colour of Remus’s eyes and I’ve known him since I was eleven."

Remus hums his amusement under his breath.

"Right," Lily replies. "Are you breaking into an anecdote, or…"

"Your eyes are green," says James. "Sorry, I interrupted you. But they are."

She feels another tingle. More of a tremor, actually. "Um…"

"I mean, they’re really bloody _green,_ aren’t they?" he continues, gazing directly into her eyes and looking a little awed by what he’s seeing. "Kick-you-in-the-nuts green—but in a really good way, y’know? And I—" He points to his chest. _"I_ noticed that, without even trying."

"I… okay?"

"Huh," he says, and grins, and seems bizarrely proud of himself. "I must be growing as a person. Want a second pancake?"

"I’d love one."

"Good, because I feel rather compelled to show off in front of you, and pancake flipping is a special skill of mine."

"Well, then," Lily allows, thinking that she might fancy this man a little, "flip to your heart’s content."

*******

"You can't just say that the thimble is out to get you and expect me to let that slide."

"I absolutely can and you absolutely _should,_ because it _is_ out to get me."

"You're projecting conscious thought—you're projecting _motive—_ onto small inanimate objects!"  

"I'm not projecting anything," James staunchly protests. "Not if it's already there."

A month has passed since Lily and Remus went antiquing.

In that time, Lily has not seen James Potter at all, though she's thought about him a small handful of times, most notably on the day of the aforementioned antiquing. She'd returned home from her trip to the antiques fair with her tea set acquired, then spent a good hour stalking pictures of James on the internet before retiring to bed.

Yes, she saved a few to her phone and sent them to Beatrice and Mary for inspection. That's fine. Everyone does that nowadays.

No, she isn't remotely worried. He's not the first attractive bloke she's ever seen in her life.

And yes, she _might_ have devoted significant mental energy to staring at the side of Remus's head in the pub tonight, silently urging him to invite her and Beatrice back to his house because it sits within walking distance of the Red Lion, but it's not as if James was her _sole_ reason for wanting to go back there.

She has to retrieve a book Remus borrowed. Also, Remus has a very comfortable sofa. Books and sofas are all a woman needs in life, really.

Only now it's coming on one in the morning, Remus and Bea have fallen asleep in front of _Captain America: Civil War,_ and Lily hasn't ventured anywhere near the sofa since she walked across the threshold and found a sleepy-eyed, tousle-haired James emerging from the kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate in hand. Nor has she mentioned the book she was earlier so desperate to retrieve.

James perked up as soon as he caught sight of her, abandoning what appeared to be his plan to head upstairs to his bedroom.

And really, how was Lily supposed to think about her book after that?

They've been sitting in the kitchen for a while, using a Monopoly board to play a racing game that James invented himself. The game consists of a series of knockout rounds. Each player controls five pieces, rolling dice for each one until all have circled the board. The last piece to pass _Go_ is eliminated from all further rounds, and so on and so forth, until only one champion remains.

It sounded immensely bland when James pitched it to her, but it's round five of nine, and Lily is having a brilliant time.

She's also winning, with four pieces left to James's two, and he persists in being personally offended by pieces that he feels have "betrayed" him, which is ridiculous and hilarious and daft.

Besides, he makes an excellent hot chocolate.

"The fact that you're acting like there's anything at play here besides blind luck is quite sad, honestly," Lily tells him, moving the thimble piece past Piccadilly. Three doubles sends a piece back to jail, where James's cat piece is currently languishing, but she rolled two in a row, then topped it off with a smooth nine. Much to his chagrin. "What do you do when you lose games that require _actual_ skill?"

"I don't lose games of skill unless I'm being conspired against, which I am," says James, snatching the dice from the middle of the board. He glowers at the thimble piece, his hazel eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "I'm on to you, Thimble."

"Oh, so Thimble is its _name_ now? Like Madonna? It's achieved _that_ level of notoriety?"

"Yeah it has. It betrayed me and that needs to be noted," says James. "What of it?"

He tosses the dice—much as he flips a pancake—quite high and with great fanfare, but Lily catches them both in her outstretched palms like raindrops, clasping her hands together when his eyes widen in indignation and surprise.

"Interference!" he cries, an actually shakes his fist like an irate prospector. "That was _definitely_ going to be a twelve!"

"Don't shake your fist at me—I'm not a child who kicked their football into your garden, and you're not an old age pensioner," Lily scolds him, struggling to keep back a smile. "You know you're very dramatic, don't you?"

James laughs. "You interrupted my roll to tell me that I'm dramatic?"

"It needed to be noted."

"You think I didn't already _know_ that I was dramatic?"

"I figured you knew, but I was curious as to whether you’ve ever been apathetic about anything in your life."

"I was pretty apathetic when you first met me."

"No you weren’t, you’d applied yourself to wallowing in misery with 100% commitment, and that fascinates me," Lily says. "Don’t you ever get tired?"

"Not really, I’ve got excellent stamina," he replies, leaning over the table, his head bending closer to hers like they’re sharing some mind-bending secret. "Have you ever made an observation that you _didn’t_ express to someone you barely knew?"

"If you don’t like my observations—"

"Never said I didn’t."

"You sure? Because you sounded accusatory enough."

"Must be my innate dramatics leading you astray. I like your observations." He pauses, cocking his head to the side. "I especially like that I’m the subject of them."

"Why’s that?"

"You’re smart and pretty, and I like the attention," says James, as if this goes without saying. "Why do you think I’m down here with you instead of tucked up in bed?"

Lily's heart has been engaged in a rapid-fire thrumming from the moment James sloped out of the kitchen like a scruffy-haired angel, and now it performs a strange, fluttery little encore to top it all off.

"Because you're intensely committed to Monopoly racing, not to mention your insane rivalry with the thimble. Who may or may not be Madonna," she says, feeling all manner of tingles now. "What about Michelle?"

James shrugs. "Michelle was standing in the way of another girl."

"And who told you that?"

"Another girl," he says simply, and holds out his hand, his lips stretched in cocky sort of smile. "I'll have those dice back, thank you."

Lily surrenders the dice, her fingers lingering a spell as they brush against his, anticipation tingling through her skin like a static shock waiting to happen, and he grins at her, and she smiles back, and they say no more about it.

It's really quite warm in this kitchen.

Very warm, indeed.


End file.
